


too much is never enough

by warsfeil



Category: Fruits Basket
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, alternate universe: they're twins, but like they're both still akito, but you can't name them both akito, i have no idea how to tag this, so akito and akito are twins, so one is named akiko and she's a girl and akito is a boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:53:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27551857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warsfeil/pseuds/warsfeil
Summary: Akito and Akiko are born as the twin gods to preside over the juunishi: a story in several banquets, and then some.The story goes:God was born, and god would attend the banquets. Of course. But something happened, and god was the second child born, preceded immediately by a twin sister. No one had dreamed of two gods, and so it was assumed that there must only be one, and it must be the boy, because why would a girl be god? The dreams of children couldn’t be trusted.So Akito was favored and his sister was not, but he would scream -- and scream and scream and scream -- the second they were moved away from each other. His mother shook the house with her anger, but in the end, there was no raising them separately, as they’d been intending.They attended the first banquet together, and continued to do so.
Relationships: Honda Tohru/Sohma Akito, Sohma Akito/Sohma Hatori, Sohma Akito/Sohma Kyou, Sohma Akito/Sohma Kyou/Honda Tohru, Sohma Akito/Sohma Shigure, Sohma Akito/Sohma Shigure/Sohma Hatori, Sohma Hatori/Sohma Shigure
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34





	too much is never enough

**Author's Note:**

> things i should be writing: my nanowrimo, my commissions, literally anything else  
> things i actually write: a 12k twin au literally no one asked for 
> 
> i have no excuse or explanation for this fic, it just happened and so i offer it up to you. believe me, i'm as confused as you are. do you ever just zone out and write a 12k fic and when you're done you can't even edit it because what the fuck? what the fuck? what the fu

Akito doesn’t remember the first banquet he attends. He doesn’t remember the first several, actually -- he only hears stories about them later. 

The story goes:

God was born, and god would attend the banquets. Of course. But something happened, and god was the second child born, preceded immediately by a twin sister. No one had dreamed of two gods, and so it was assumed that there must only be one, and it must be the boy, because why would a girl be god? The dreams of children couldn’t be trusted.

So Akito was favored and his sister was not, but he would scream -- and scream and scream and scream -- the second they were moved away from each other. His mother shook the house with her anger, but in the end, there was no raising them separately, as they’d been intending.

They attended the first banquet together, and continued to do so.

-

Akiko’s memories start at about the fourth banquet. She remembers holding Akito’s hand so tightly that it must have hurt, but he didn’t complain in the slightest; he held her hand back just as steadily, met the gaze of their mother and their father in challenge and went to the banquet.

She didn’t leave Akito’s side for hours. They watched the dance together and they ate together, and several of the juunishi surrounding them cried, and Akiko didn’t understand why, when it was meant to be a special occasion. 

“We’re all,” Shigure tells her, “happy to see you again. That’s all.”

“To see,” Akiko repeats, a vague echo, and then she trails off, looking at Akito. Her speech has come slower; she says less and listens more, and it’s easier for her to speak to Akito in their half-language than anything else. But Akito is across the room, now: he’s talking with Hatori, leaning too far forward and looking enraptured, and Akiko doesn’t understand it. 

“To see you both,” Shigure clarifies. 

“I’m not,” Akiko says. 

Shigure reaches out, tucks her hair behind her ear. Her bangs are longer on one side, cut to match Akito, the two of them nearly indistinguishable save for the fact that Akito is the more animated of them. 

“I’m glad you’re both god,” Shigure says. “It means that you’ll never be alone.”

Akiko thinks about that: looks back at Akito, then back at Shigure. She knows that the rest of the juunishi are there for them, too; there’s a bond that’s as deep as anything, but she’d be lying if she said it wasn’t different than what’s between she and Akito. 

“Thank you,” Akiko says, instead. Shigure stands up, and Akiko follows the motion, and he takes her hand and walks her over to join in Hatori’s conversation. She curls up next to Akito’s side, resting against him, and listens.

-

The first banquet after Akira dies is when everything starts to change.

“You’re not going,” Ren says, and she’s livid: Akito thinks she looks like a demon, sent straight out of hell with all the powers she could steal. “You’re nothing.”

Akiko looks at Akito, and then looks back at Ren. There’s tension in her frame, quiet exhaustion, and Akito reaches down, takes her hand in his and looks back at his mother with only determination in his eyes.

“She’s more than you are,” Akito says, and a maid gasps and Ren reaches out. She doesn’t slap him: she slaps Akiko, the motion too quick for either of them to stop. Akito steps forward automatically, drops Akiko’s hand so he can shove back at his mother with all of his might. It isn’t much, but Ren stumbles backwards. In shock, maybe, or in anger. 

“She’s nothing,” Ren says, even as she’s pulled away. “She shouldn’t be here.”

Akito ignores her; he reaches up, places his hand over the red mark on Akiko’s cheek. Akiko reaches out to mirror the action, places her own hand on his cheek. 

“I’m glad I was born with you,” Akito says, quietly, his Japanese slipping into the half-language the two of them developed years ago, “if it means you aren’t alone with her.”

Akiko blinks hard, then reaches up to rub an arm over her eyes before she cries. “I don’t want to be alone.” 

They go to the banquet, and no one questions Akiko’s red eyes or the way she latches onto Akito. These things are normal; these things are simply how the twins are, and it’s accepted as easily as any other part of the curse. Shigure drifts over to them, eventually, and they both climb onto him, resting back against him and against each other.

-

Yuki is given to Akito as some sort of human sacrifice, which is as nice as it is creepy, all things considered. Akito has to be careful to speak in actual words instead of the language that only his sister can understand, and Yuki takes awhile to get used to the way Akito and Akiko will communicate without ever needing to speak at all.

They all go to the banquet together. Akito and Akiko are always in the same spot, but as the years grow longer Akiko seems more and more reluctant about it; she hangs further back, rests against Kureno or Yuki, swapping sides as she sees fit.

“You’re no less god than he is, you know,” Shigure tells her, and Akiko looks up at him from where she’s sprawled across Kureno’s legs despite the fact that he’s sitting seiza. 

“It isn’t that,” Akiko says, quietly. “It isn’t like I can’t feel it.” She can reach within herself and feel the blossom of a promise deep in her chest. She can hear voices like chimes in the back of her mind, layered in over one another, promising to be with her, promising that she’s special, promising that she’s loved.

“Then what is it?” Shigure asks.

Akiko hesitates for a long moment. Akito is quicker to respond than she is; even if they have the same thought, he’ll say it quicker, say it harsher. She’s grown too used to letting him. 

“He doesn’t want to be alone, either,” Akiko says, finally. She pushes herself up, and Kureno takes the opportunity to stretch his legs back out. He winces at the motion, and then offers Akiko a smile when she gives him a concerned look.

“He won’t be,” Shigure says, and Akiko reaches out, grabs onto the edge of Shigure’s shirt.

“Promise,” Akiko says, “that he’ll never be alone. That you won’t leave him alone, no matter what.”

There’s something there in Shigure’s eyes that Akiko can’t unravel. She knows anger; she knows sadness. She doesn’t know what emotion is there, in his smile, in his gaze.

“I promise,” Shigure says, after a moment, and Akiko nods. She releases her grip on him and stands, her attention turning away the second she hears what she wants, and she refocuses in on Yuki, instead, stepping over to him when his shoulders shake.

“Shigure-niisan,” Kureno says, massaging feeling back into his calves, a question in his voice.

“I’m terrible at compromise,” Shigure says, which doesn’t explain anything, but seems to satisfy Kureno. Shigure watches the twins, the way Akiko leans in close when Yuki coughs, the way Akito listens to Ayame talk with a blank look on his face. 

Shigure supposes it was selfish to assume that they’d be more similar than they already are.

-

Kureno sits in the corner of the room after his curse breaks, and Akiko sits with him, perched on his lap and holding on to his shirt. It isn’t that unusual, and so no one really notices, not when Akito is so enamored with Hatori, so preoccupied with Shigure. Akito’s personality has become the more commanding of the two: he’s meant to be a leader, everyone says. He’ll lead the family to greatness, the maids say.

Akiko thinks that’s all true, but she worries, then, where she’ll fit in, if the curse is breaking.

“Where will you go,” Akiko says, softly, “if it breaks for everyone?”

“I’ll probably stay here,” Kureno says. “We’re still family.”

Family feels like such a fragile bond, to Akiko. Her mother is family, but they don’t speak. Akiko avoids her like a disease, and so Ren is relegated to the shadows of Akiko’s thoughts, dangerous and waiting for an unguarded moment. Her father was family, but he always favored Akito more. Akito is family, but that isn’t the right word for it: Akito is an extension of her, tied together by the spirit of god, by the possession that links the two of them together. 

“Family,” Akiko repeats, faintly. “Yuki’s family gave him up.” 

Kureno is quiet for a long moment. “I think family is bigger than that,” Kureno says, finally. “You’re his family, now.” 

Akiko is unconvinced: there are roles she can never fill, with Yuki; there are things she can never do. She holds him when he coughs and she sleeps with him when he’s scared and there’s still so much that she can’t make him understand because she doesn’t have the words, if it’s anyone but Akito. She doesn’t have the words, just the desperate feelings that she wishes she could convey. 

She stands up; she’s as abrupt as ever, and she slips away from Kureno entirely, drifting out of the room without explanation. He doesn’t ask for one. Akito steps over to him, a few moments later, Shigure in tow.

“She’s looking for something,” Akito explains, even though it doesn’t clear anything up.

“What?” Kureno asks.

Akito has a faraway look in his eyes. He has the words to explain the things that she feels, but he doesn’t feel them: they’re echoes that ache in his chest on her behalf. If he reaches inside of himself, there’s nothing but the knowledge that he is loved, where she only has questions. He has the confidence that she lacks, and she has the empathy that he can’t understand. 

He supposes that’s the truth of the juunishi curse, more than anything: each of them lack something integral to humanity, something that he doesn’t think they’ll manage to find even once the curses break. Control, empathy, love, communication -- those things are out of reach to all of them, in different ways. 

Akito places his hand on his chest. “A bond,” Akito says, “that’s deeper than even this.”

In truth, Akito is searching for it too. Kureno’s curse breaking presented an interesting problem, the idea that bonds could be broken so easily -- that something they believed in could be so _fragile_ He wants something deeper; he wants something that will never break, never leave him, never change.

-

Akiko finds what she’s looking for at the next banquet. She stays until the bulk of the festivities are over, and then she gets up, pads out. Akito is getting taller, now, shooting up past her, so the kimono she’s stolen from him is too long, and she hasn’t bothered to gather it. She lets it drag behind her and avoids tripping herself with careful skill, and then she sees the snow outside.

It’s cold outside. When Akiko steps out, the chill hits her like a punch, and she exhales slowly, allows herself to rub her arms before she inhales again and decides she’s over it. She discards the feeling just like that, stepping forward with bare feet and watching the way the snow melts underfoot.

“--Hey,” someone says, and Akiko turns.

She locks eyes with Kyou. It isn’t the first time they’ve met, but it’s the first time in awhile, and he looks concerned.

“Akiko, right?” Kyou says, and Akiko wonders how he’d known so readily which one she was when they still look so similar. “Your feet are going to fall off.”

Akiko frowns, looking down at her feet. They’re fine. They’re red from the cold, but they’re certainly still attached, and she can’t think of why they wouldn’t be.

“If you get cold, your feet can fall off,” Kyou says. “Shishou told me.”

“It isn’t that cold,” Akiko says. She’s felt cold much worse than this inside of herself. 

“It’s _snowing_ ,” Kyou says, impatiently, like the argument is a waste of time. “You should go back inside.”

Akiko considers it for a moment. She considers going back there, to the warmth of the room, to the company of all the juunishi. It’s hard for her, sometimes; she feels like an outsider, watching the way they so easily get along with each other and being unable to participate. She isn’t like Akito. She finds it hard to insert herself into their lives, into their conversations. They look at him with awe and love, but they look at her with reverence, like she’s something too precious to even be touched. 

Akiko looks at Kyou for a long moment, then steps into the snow proper, leaving footprints behind her as she steps over to Kyou. She’s taller than him, which delights her, but she reaches out to grab his hand. Kyou jerks back, but doesn’t remove his arm from her grasp.

“What are you doing?” Kyou asks. He isn’t reverent. He isn’t treating her like glass.

“Come inside,” Akiko says.

“I can’t,” Kyou says, and Akiko considers it, rolls the fact around in her mind. He can’t. The cat can’t. That’s true. 

She doesn’t know why.

“Not there,” Akiko says, and dismisses the banquet hall as easily as she’d dismissed the cold. She starts to walk, and Kyou is tugged along behind her for a few confused paces before he matches her stride. 

“Where are we going?” Kyou asks.

“Somewhere warmer,” Akiko says. Kyou is nervous: he keeps looking over his shoulder like someone is going to chase after them, but no one does. Akiko’s feet start to go numb, after awhile, but she doesn’t stop, even as Kyou drifts closer to her. She wonders what his true form looks like, as the beads around his wrist rub against her arm. 

She takes him to one of the other houses. Not his, and not one inhabited by anyone else -- it’s a glorified record room with a backstock of books she’s starting to hit the age where she can read. She lets them both in, and it isn’t that much warmer than the outside, but there’s a little space heater upstairs, and she turns it on and the lamp and then moves them both into the door to the balcony.

“Here,” Akiko says.

“What am I doing here?” Kyou asks. He hovers near the space heater, uncertain, and Akiko holds her hand out again. This time, he takes it, stepping forward and sliding his fingers into Akiko’s like it’s the only thing that makes any sense.

It’s a nice feeling, to be someone’s lifeline.

“You were just watching the snow,” Akiko says. “Weren’t you? It’s nicer here.”

Kyou doesn’t disagree. They can still see the banquet hall in the distance, and no one comes looking for them, so Kyou relaxes, after a moment. Akiko starts to sit, and Kyou grabs her by the shoulders.

“Hold on,” he says, and she’s too startled by the order and the rough contact to do anything but stand there awkwardly. He bustles back inside, and she can see him rummaging for a moment before he reappears with a couple blankets from one of the storage closets. He sets one on the ground, covering up the collected snow.

“Now sit,” he says, and Akiko does. Kyou sits a moment later, and swings the other blanket around Akito, reaching down to tuck her feet in carefully.

The blanket smells like dust, and Akiko sneezes.

“Sorry,” Kyou says. “Wait, no I’m not! You’ll get even sicker if you’re cold.”

“I’m always sick anyway,” Akiko says.

“That’s even more of a reason to _not be in the cold_ ,” Kyou says, and Akiko considers it, then scoots closer to Kyou.

“What are you doing,” Kyou says.

“You’re warm,” Akiko says, “so you can keep me from getting sick.”

“That’s not how that works!” Kyou says, and there’s a flush high on his cheeks that Akiko ignores. She considers him for a moment: the cat, the outcast, the outsider. Cursed more than anyone else. Hated by god. 

Well. Maybe by Akito, she supposes. Akito can take that one.

Akiko leans over, instead, pitches forward onto Kyou’s legs and pulls the blanket up to her chin until all she feels is warmth. 

Kyou doesn’t say anything. He sits there, tense and still, for the longest time, but Akiko doesn’t move except to catch a snowflake here and there as it drifts down to earth. Slowly, Kyou relaxes, and Akiko isn’t sure exactly when it happens, but they both fall asleep there for a few hours. They wake up to the sound of Akiko’s name being called by the maids, and Akiko sits up, rubbing at her eyes.

“Thank you,” Akiko says, blearily, and Kyou’s unease turns to confusion as he looks at her.

“For what?” Kyou asks.

“For staying,” Akiko says, “even though everyone is so mean to you.”

Kyou doesn’t reply to that. He just looks shell-shocked, and Akito stands up, wobbles a little on feet that are definitely numb, then pats his head twice as she leaves. He’ll find his own way out. It’s probably better if they don’t leave together, anyway.

-

Akito watches his sister leave at the next banquet, and he wonders. She hasn’t detailed what she’s started to get up to, and the link between them is as strong as ever -- but something is changing between them, a shift in their dynamic and their relationship. He wonders what’s happening.

“You look upset,” Shigure observes, sitting down next to Akito. 

“Hm,” Akito says. He’s getting too big to crawl into Shigure’s lap like a child, so he leans over onto his shoulder, instead. Akito is getting taller and Akiko is getting hips and the two of them are changing, changing into different people instead of the one being they thought they were as children.

“One day,” Akito says, “the curse will break entirely.”

He knows it, even if it’s terrifying. The thought scared them so badly the first time that they’d cried long enough that the maids had to summon half the older juunishi in the middle of the night to help calm them down, and it was only when they were held in Hatori and Shigure and Kureno’s embrace that they managed to find some solace. 

“Probably,” Shigure says. “What will you do when it does?”

Word has traveled throughout the juunishi, and Akito and Akiko have been up front with the answer: Kureno is different because his curse is broken. He’s still allowed at the banquets because no one dares to tell them otherwise, and as far as the juunishi are concerned, it’s an open secret between them only. The maids and Ren and even their parents haven’t been informed, and the twins intend to keep it that way as long as possible. 

“Will I,” Akito says, slowly, “be alone?”

Shigure reaches out, and Akito leans in further, letting Shigure spread his palm across Akito’s cheek, slide along to trace the curve of his ear.

“I’ll be here,” Shigure says. 

Shigure has always declared it: that he loves them; that he loved them before he was born. That love has started to take on a different feeling, lately, and Akito wonders -- can he be selfish enough to take love away from his sister? Were they meant to find their own love, separate, or together?

“For who?” Akito asks.

Shigure smiles, but there’s no happiness there. 

“I suppose it can’t be both of you,” Shigure says.

Akito is quiet for a long moment. “It would be enough for me,” he says, finally, “but not for her.” 

It’s hard to describe, so he doesn’t. Shigure can figure it out himself. As far as Akito is concerned, Akito is simply himself given female form. She’s quieter, she’s milder, but she’s just as quick to anger, just as prone to jumping to the wrong conclusion, just as easily upset and as terrified of being alone.

But things are changing, and Akito thinks it’s different for her, now. She’s searching for something beyond their link, looking for a happiness that she can lay claim to all on her own.

Akito thinks it might have been different, if they’d had different parents. 

“If you tell me you’ll never leave me,” Akito says, and reaches up, lets his fingers trace the edge of Shigure’s collar, “then I’ll believe you, but that means that if you ever _do_ leave me, I’ll kill you.”

“Then believe me,” Shigure says, and leans forward, presses a kiss to Akito’s forehead. “I’ll never leave you, because I’ve always loved you.”

-

Every year, there is a banquet, and there’s something of a routine: the twins arrive, and they sit, and they watch the dance and they eat. Inevitably, Akiko leaves -- Akito knows where she goes, now, knows who she’s with, and wonders if they aren’t violating some part of the curse -- and Akito is left alone with the rest of the juunishi.

Akito favors Shigure, and he knows that’s obvious; he favors Hatori. He plays favorites as much as Akiko does, and no one seems to _mind_ , really, because all of the juunishi can request attention as easily as anything and they’ll be granted it. But Isuzu only meets Akito’s eyes with a challenge, and Yuki only excuses himself to cough in the hall, and Kureno carefully helps pick out Akiko’s dresses, and they all adhere to one god or another without really meaning to.

It doesn’t bother Akito, but only because he and Akiko refuse to bring jealousy into their relationship. They’re the same: they’re both god, tied together with a sense of deep inevitability, even as their personalities change. 

Akito thinks they could have been the same. They could have aligned their personalities better. It was different, before Kureno’s curse broke, but then they both felt the end coming, rushing towards them like an oncoming train, and there was nothing they could do to stop it but prepare for the end. They’d let their paths diverge, and with it, their relationships went from a singular entity -- Shigure with both of them, Hatori with both of them, Yuki with both of them -- to unique.

Akito has a relationship that Akiko doesn’t, and vice versa, and the thought is terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time.

So: Akiko slips away to her favorite, and Akito watches her go and then stands up to join his favorites, Shigure and Hatori standing against one of the far walls and talking with drinks in their hands. Akito slides over, slips up against Shigure’s side. Shigure accommodates him automatically, looping an arm around him, and Akito tugs the arm closer so he can steal a sip of Shigure’s drink -- less because of the alcohol and more because it belongs to Shigure.

“You’re too young for that,” Hatori says, automatically.

“You should be grateful I don’t do worse,” Akito says. “I’m in highschool. I know what you all got up to in highschool.”

Hatori, for his part, looks deeply aggrieved at the thought, but Shigure just laughs. Akito drinks more, and Hatori winds up being the one to take him back to his room, to lay him on the futon and teach him how to deal with the worst of the vertigo.

“Hatori,” Akito says, in the dark, in the quiet, his eyes focused on the slight double image of the moon high in the sky. There’s no snow tonight; he wonders if Akiko is disappointed. 

“Yes?”

“I love of all the juunishi,” Akito says. “But I love some of them more.” Akito rolls his gaze over. He can see Hatori’s outline in the moonlight, but he can’t make out his expression. “Shouldn’t I love one person, or none at all?” 

“I’m not the person to tell you what you should be doing,” Hatori says, mildly, and lays his hand on Akito’s forehead. Akito closes his eyes and remembers all the times he’s been fever hot and felt Hatori’s cool touch. “But I don’t know if there’s a wrong way to love.”

Hatori talks about it in the abstract, like he hasn’t loved, like he hasn’t been loved, and so Akito turns his gaze, does his best to find Hatori’s eyes in the darkness. 

“I love you,” Akito says, “and I love Shigure. I think I love you two the most.” After Akiko, of course, but he doesn’t need to say that.

Hatori is quiet for a long moment. Akito waits, because he won’t sleep if Hatori doesn’t say something. 

“I’m glad,” Hatori says, finally, and it isn’t an _I love you_ back, but it’s something.

-

The banquet is, as always, complete chaos. Ayame is regaling several of the younger juunishi with a story that is equal parts loud and animated, Momiji is chattering to Hatori with such excitement that it’s coming out half in German, and Kureno has been roped into a complex game of cards with Hiro and Hatsuharu that appears to follow absolutely no rules whatsoever.

“It’s loud,” Akito murmurs. His sister rests her head on his shoulder, watching the chaos with half-lidded eyes. Her concession to the occasion was to wear a dress, but it’s hidden underneath the haori she stole from him hours ago, wrapping up in the layer like it’s a shield against the cold and everything else unpleasant in the world. 

“I’m going,” she says, slowly shifting upright, “outside.” 

Akito watches her stand; she rolls her shoulders when she’s upright, letting her posture fall open after sitting too long against him. 

“Keep it,” Akito says, when her hand goes to the hem of the haori; she offers him a smile, soft and small, in return, lets her hand fall down to trail across his hair before she vanishes into the winter night.

Shigure steps over, drops down to fill the spot next to Akito before anyone else can consider it. 

“Are you bored?” Shigure asks, calmly. There’s a cup of liquid in his hand, dark and distinctly alcoholic, and he offers it to Akito when Akito casts a curious look down at it. Akito doesn’t take it, just leans down and lets Shigure tip the cup until Akito can drink -- he takes a sip far bigger than he should, lets the burn roll down his throat.

“No,” Akito says. “I like when everyone is around.”

Shigure hums, and Akito follows the feeling of the alcohol as it goes all the way down into his stomach, dispersing into smaller parts that will warm him up entirely. 

“Did she go to see Kyou?” Shigure asks.

“Yes,” Akito says, despite the fact that she hadn’t announced her intentions at all. He knows; she’s always a bright spot in his consciousness, and he knows that he must be the same to her, the bond heavy between them more than anyone else. “I think she’s trying to convince him to go to a high school closer to here.”

This time, Akito reaches out, takes the cup from Shigure and lets their fingers drag together when he does it. He takes another sip, knowing it’ll be awhile before the alcohol hits him, and then it will be all at once instead of nothing at all. Hatori glances over, his Akito-radar going off, and then he looks at Shigure and appears to decide it’s not a fight worth having. 

Smart.

“I’m going to have to carry you out, if you keep drinking like that,” Shigure says, and it’s tilted like a joke but the look in his eyes is a little too intense to pull it off.

Akito smiles, slowly, and knocks back the rest of the cup, relishes the feeling of warmth even as it makes his stomach roil in protest with how little he’s eaten.

“How terrible,” Akito says, blithely, and Shigure laughs.

-

“You don’t have to keep me company,” Kyou protests, wrapped up in a winter jacket and perched on the engawa to watch the snowfall. His breath comes out in small puffs of air and there are snowflakes in his hair.

“I want to.” It’s become a habit, at this point: Akito stays behind -- the head of the family, the god of the zodiac, the one shouldering the responsibility -- and Akiko Sohma, born first and loved less for it, trails outside to spend time with the other outcast. 

“You’re going to get sick,” Kyou says, and his voice is exasperated even as Akiko lowers herself down to sit, bare feet dropping off the edge of the engawa. “Don’t just let your feet go down there, you’ll get frostbite.”

“Is it that cold?” Akiko asks, turning her gaze back onto Kyou, who lets out a sigh and starts unbuttoning his coat. It’s warm when he settles it around her shoulders, even through the thick linen of the stolen haori; she pulls it tighter around herself, and tugs her legs back up under her, obediently. 

“It’s snowing,” Kyou says, “so, yeah, it’s pretty cold.” He then mutters something that Akiko is fairly certain is “dumbass”, but he says it just muffled enough that she can let it pass. 

Akiko reaches out, catches a snowflake on her outstretched finger and watches the way it melts. 

“Seriously,” Kyou says, “if I go with you, will you go inside?” There’s just enough annoyance in his voice for it to fail to mask the worry, and Akiko looks at him. It’s been this way for ages, now: for too long Akiko went with only Akito to care for her, and once the others realized, they all rallied around her, pressed affection down until it was overwhelming. 

“Let me watch awhile longer,” Akiko says, and leans over, letting her head rest against Kyou’s shoulder. Kyou sighs; she can’t see the flush on his cheeks, but she knows it’s there, knows that it’s one of the many things that marks her as irrevocably different from her brother. 

“Whatever,” Kyou says, and puts an arm around her.

-

Shigure ends up carrying Akito, and Kyou ends up with an armful of sleeping Akiko, and they meet somewhere on the middle of the path to the twins’ rooms, two maids nervously trailing behind Kyou and debating the merits of throwing him out of the main house.

“You reek of alcohol,” Kyou says, and Shigure laughs. 

“That tends to happen when you drink,” Shigure says.

“Get her in a bath to warm her up or something,” Kyou says, and he balances Akiko carefully so he can nudge the door open with his foot, sliding it up. Akito watches, his gaze dark and unsteady, and Akiko doesn’t stir until she’s placed down on the futon and forced to deal with the lack of body heat.

“Your coat,” Akiko says.

“I’ll get it tomorrow,” Kyou says. Akiko reaches up, catches his bracelet with her fingers. Kyou freezes, and Akiko doesn’t hesitate; she wraps her fingers around his wrist more solidly, using all the strength she has. Which isn’t much.

“I want to see the sunrise,” Akiko says.

Shigure sets Akito down. He wavers for a moment, and then straightens, a bracing hand still on Shigure’s chest even as Shigure’s arm is around his waist. 

“If you don’t,” Akito says, “she’ll climb up on the roof herself.”

Kyou rotates this possibility around in his mind for a long moment, and then sighs. “Fine,” Kyou says, “but you’d better put on shoes before we go back out.”

-

Akito doesn’t care to see the sunrise: he falls backwards onto his futon, instead, reaches up to pull Shigure on top of him.

“You’re drunk,” Shigure says.

“I didn’t have that much,” Akito says, which is true: Shigure had metered it out carefully, and Akito was unsteady but not anywhere near as drunk as he could be.

“You had too much,” Hatori says, from the doorway, and Shigure smiles against Akito’s neck, lets his hands wander past the collar of Akito’s kimono to trail across the skin there.

“Did I?” Akito asks, and his eyes go half-lidded against the sensation of Shigure’s fingers when they brush across his chest, drag across his nipple and then down to his rib cage. “You’ll have to stay the night, then, to make sure I don’t get sick.”

“Will I,” Hatori says, dryly, and Shigure laughs against him even as Hatori is stepping forward, stripping his coat off to fold neatly over the back of the dresser before he steps over.

Akito isn’t so drunk that he can’t find Hatori’s lips, even in the darkness, and Hatori allows himself to be pulled in. Akito knows that’s it’s selfish -- to demand so much from them both -- but they’ve all fallen into this together and they’ve all made promises, and now he intends to keep that as close as he can. 

“Haa-san, you never stay over to make sure that _I’m_ not sick,” Shigure quips, giving up all pretense about the situation as he undoes Akito’s obi. 

“ _You_ deserve every hangover you get,” Hatori says, and his fingers on Akito’s face are gentle, his knuckles trailing across Akito’s cheek.

“That’s so mean,” Shigure says, and leans in, pressing a hand down on Hatori’s thigh. 

“I’m not mean,” Hatori says, without missing a beat, and Akito reaches up to pull them both down until the discussion is completely forgotten about.

-

Akiko dresses properly when they go to the roof, but doesn’t relinquish Kyou’s coat. It’s fine -- he winds up in one of Akito’s, which is horrifying to the maids but better made than anything Kyou has ever owned -- and she still nestles back against him once they sit down.

“What will you wish for?” Akiko asks.

“I don’t know,” Kyou says. 

“I took away your wish,” Akiko says, softly.

Kyou looks at her like she’s grown a third head. “What?”

“Because,” Akiko says, “I told everyone the curse was ending. You don’t have to wish for freedom anymore.”

Kyou is quiet for a long moment. He looks down at his hands; he looks down at her head, nestled against his chest. She reaches out to touch the beads around his wrist, and he lets her: she traces each one, then slides a finger underneath them to hold onto Kyou’s wrist, to wrap her fingers around his wrist instead. 

“It hasn’t broken yet,” Kyou says, finally. 

“It will,” Akiko says. “I can tell. So you don’t have to waste a wish. You won’t be a prisoner.”

It’s the kind of decision that Akiko is allowed to make. She’s god -- Kyou has always felt it thrumming through him, the same automatic obedience that he feels to Akito, split across two people -- but it’s different. She’s quiet; she watches everything without smiling, leaning against Akito as he commands the world.

“What,” Kyou asks, “are you gonna do, when it breaks?”

Akiko stops moving, for a long moment; she’s a weight against him, and then she exhales, long and slow. 

“I’ll be alone,” Akiko says, with such dull certainty that Kyou doesn’t know why she believes it but he can’t imagine it’s true. Even if the curse is broken, he doesn’t think any of them could leave her, not with the finality she seems to think. 

“I,” Kyou blurts, without thinking, “won’t leave you.”

Akiko pauses. She slowly pushes herself up, a hand on Kyou’s thigh to balance herself precariously. Kyou is very aware that she’s one of the only girls he’s been close to like this -- he doesn’t run the risk of transforming, he doesn’t have to hide a secret. She knows everything, including the ugliness he’s always tried to keep inside.

“Why?” Akiko asks.

Kyou doesn’t know how to answer that. “You didn’t leave me,” he says, after a moment, because it feels right. 

Akiko looks at him for a long moment. There’s something desperate in her gaze, something searching and wanting, and he recognizes it in a flash as the first rays of dawn start to break over the horizon. That bone-deep need to be love; that raw feeling when you’ve been so prepared for rejection but you still can’t stop hoping.

Kyou realizes, in that moment, that he hasn’t felt that way in a long time.

Akiko looks at the slowly spreading dawn. She closes her eyes; she mouths something that Kyou can’t even begin to lip read, doubts it’s even in English. Then she leans back in and presses her lips against Kyou’s, slow and sweet, and Kyou wishes for something he’d never dare to think about before.

-

Kyo doesn’t attend the banquet the following year.

Akiko listens to Shigure’s report, dully, and slides her fingers into Akito’s hand. She can feel it, echoed in her own chest, that flash of angry possession: how dare he, when he belongs to them? 

Akito looks at her, and then squeezes back.

“He didn’t want Tohru-kun to be alone,” Shigure says, spreading his hands like it was an unavoidable conclusion. Akiko feels something raw in her chest that she’s never felt before, and Akito keeps looking at her, steady and careful.

“Go,” Akito says, finally. Akiko jerks her gaze up. She’s aware of Shigure, peripherally -- he doesn’t look surprised, just brings a hand up to his mouth and makes a considering noise. 

“I can’t,” Akiko says, automatically, because they’ve done it together for so long. The bond between them -- it meant more than anything else, didn’t it? They would be together, because they were “god”, because they were “special”. 

Akito leans forward. He presses his forehead against hers, like they did when they were kids. Akiko feels something in her chest burst, because they haven’t done it in years. There’s a hundred things slowly adding up that they haven’t been doing. She can’t remember the last time they slept in the same bed. She can’t remember the last time they stayed up too late talking, or the last time they snuck out together, or the last time they sat together and read the same book at the same time. 

It’s breaking, just like the curse. 

“You’re god,” Akito says, and it’s _you_ instead of _we_. “You can do what you want.” 

Akiko takes in a shaking breath. She stands, slowly, and then looks at Shigure, who simply digs in his sleeve for a moment before he produces a house key. She takes it, looks at it, and then bolts out the door.

“Ah,” Shigure says, watching her go, “she’s going to forget a jacket.”

“Did you know this would happen, when you offered to move closer to the school he wanted to attend?” Akito asks. He can feel Akiko on the edge of his awareness until she disappears in a panging absence that used to make him scream for hours. He reaches out, instead, leans forward into Shigure’s touch. 

“I certainly didn’t expect Tohru-kun to be living in a tent,” Shigure says, “but they do say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

“That’s,” Akito says, letting Shigure tilt his head back, “a terrible excuse.” Then Shigure kisses him, and Akito allows himself to patch over the holes in his chest with the taste of Shigure’s lips.

-

Akiko slams the door to Shigure’s house open and then promptly collapses.

“What the fuck,” Kyou says, which is how she knows she’s caught him off guard: he’d never speak _that_ vulgarly around her normally. “Did you run all the way here? _Without a coat_?”

Akiko can’t actually reply, because she’s busy feeling like her lungs are melting out of her body. She feels hands on her a moment later, and then more hands, and she blinks, making the world come back into focus. 

“I’m sorry,” the girl says, sounding genuinely remorseful as she helps Akito sit up. “I know you don’t know me, but please allow me to help!”

“Tohru,” Kyou says, “this is Akiko. Akiko, this is Tohru.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Tohru says, quickly, politely. Akiko does not say it back. She looks at Tohru, slowly, takes in the whole of her: the concern in her eyes and the smile on her lips. There’s enka playing on the television, quietly, and the entire house feels warm in a way that Akiko can’t place for a long moment -- until she can.

It’s the feeling of being held in Shigure’s arms as a child; the feeling of wrapping up in the same blanket as Akito; the feeling of kissing Kyou.

“I’m going to go get a blanket,” Tohru says, and then she’s off, footsteps drifting into an area of the house that Akiko can’t begin to imagine.

“What were you thinking?” Kyou asks, quietly. 

“I didn’t,” Akiko says, “want to be alone.”

Kyou looks stricken, for a moment, and then offers Akiko a smile, awkward and unskilled.

“You could have said something,” Kyou says, sounding exasperated and fond and embarrassed all at the same time, and Akiko slowly lets herself tip forward until her head is on Kyou’s shoulder. 

“You could have said something,” Akiko repeats back, tonelessly, and Kyou reaches up, pets the back of her head. 

“I’m sorry, alright? I’ll make sure to send a card next time to tell you I won’t be sitting outside the banquet,” Kyou says, and Akiko is pretty sure he’s rolling his eyes but she doesn’t really care. 

“Next time,” Akiko says, “I’ll come earlier, if you’re staying with her.”

Kyou is quiet for a long moment. Akiko doesn’t look up at him. She can’t handle the idea of rejection, but he doesn’t reject her; she doesn’t know what look is in his eyes, but she’s afraid of it, assumes the worst somewhere deep within her heart.

“--Um!” Tohru says, and Akiko raises her head to look at the girl, holding a blanket in her arms and a flush high on her cheeks. “I can go--”

“It’s fine,” Akiko says.

“Can she,” Kyou says, “use your bathroom?” 

“Of course!” Tohru says. She steps over to Akiko, holds her hand out, and Akiko looks at it dully for a long moment. It processes in her mind on a delay, like the winter cold has penetrated deep into her thoughts, and she looks back at Kyou, questioning. He only looks back, an exasperated smile on his face.

“You might as well take it,” Kyou says.

“What?” Tohru asks, unable to keep up with the ever-shifting dynamics of the Sohma. She doesn’t remove her hand, though, keeps it there in front of Akiko and a smile on her face even as she looks confused.

It’s kind of cute. 

Akiko takes Tohru’s hand, lets herself be lifted up to her feet. 

“My bathroom is upstairs,” Tohru says, her voice filling the quiet as Akiko follows her down the hall. “While you get warm, I’ll start on dinner! You must be starving!”

She presses a towel into Akiko’s hands when Akiko steps towards the bathroom, and Akiko wonders if this is what a home is meant to feel like.

-

“Akiko-san,” Tohru says, when Akiko finally wanders back down the stairs. It isn’t a call for attention, it’s just a greeting: Tohru waves, Shigure’s table filled with homemade food, and Akiko stares at it for a moment before crossing over. She sits next to Kyou, automatically, tucking her legs under the table and leaning against his shoulder.

“I hope it all tastes alright,” Tohru says. “I’m sure there would have been much better food at the banquet, but I’m glad to meet you tonight, instead!”

It’s so -- genuine. It reminds Akiko a little of Momiji, actually; it’s open and straightforward, earnest in a way Akiko is unused to. She and Akito have always been closed off to the world. They can understand each other, but there are few outside of that line that can understand them. Akito pulls the juunishi closer and Akiko pushes them further away, and they all seem to choose sides, inevitably, find themselves orbiting one god or another.

Akiko wonders if that’s why there’s two of them. 

“It’s fine,” Akiko says. She doesn’t eat much by nature, her appetite as closed off as the rest of her, but Tohru still slides over the parts of the meal and Kyou reaches out, flicks her on the side of the head with all the casual irreverence she’s starting to expect from him.

“Sit up and eat,” he chides her, gently, and Akiko frowns, but does.

“It’s good,” she says, and Tohru _beams_ , bright and satisfied as the sun, and Akiko feels overwhelmed and drawn in at the same time.

“I’m glad!” Tohru says. 

“It’s better than whatever they’d serve at the banquet,” Kyou mutters, despite the fact that he has never once attended the banquet.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say--” Tohru begins.

“It is,” Akiko says, before Tohru can continue. Kyou glances at her with surprise, but then he smiles, and Tohru raises her hands to try and brush away the praise.

“I-- I’m sure it isn’t nearly as good as what a professional cook could do, and--” Tohru starts.

Akiko fixes her with a look, careful and blank, and says, “Are you saying I’m wrong?”

“That’s--” Tohru says, and she looks so genuinely upset by the idea that Akiko almost feels guilty. “I didn’t mean to say you were wrong, it’s just that--”

“Tohru,” Kyou says. “Chill. She’s teasing you.”

“Is that what I was doing?” Akiko asks, but it starts to click in to place as Kyou says it. She doesn’t really -- tease -- much, but she understands it; Shigure teases her, sometimes, and she has always been the sort to take it very seriously. Once she’d bit him when she was six and he’d pretend he couldn’t tell her from Akito, and ever since then he’d made sure to mention he was teasing after seeing her get visibly angry, for the sake of his skin and her mental state.

Shigure still had the scar, but Akiko somehow doubted that Tohru was the sort of person to bite.

“Oh,” Tohru says, and then offers Akiko a smile. She looks down, embarrassed. 

“I wasn’t lying,” Akiko says, “about the food. It’s good. The food at the banquet is fine.” 

“You never eat the food at the banquet,” Kyou says, and Akiko frowns, pushing some of the rice around in her bowl with her chopsticks.

“This is better,” she says, and she doesn’t know why that is. It isn’t bad, but the main house has better ingredients, professional chefs, maids who have been cooking for decades. The food is artistic and delicious and Akiko has never once in her life had an appetite for any of it.

She doesn’t mind eating this, though.

“It’s ‘cause Tohru made it,” Kyou says, with a careless shrug of his shoulder, like it explains everything, and maybe it does. In the same way that Akiko preferred to watch the sunrise with Kyou, maybe it was normal to prefer to eat the food that someone else made, someone you l--

Oh.

Hm.

“Interesting,” Akiko says, and Kyou gives her a look. Tohru looks between the two of them, nervously, but then Kyou says something about the television and Tohru launches into a story about her mother, and Akiko watches the two of them interact more than she listens to the story.

There’s something soft in Kyou’s gaze, something that rounds out his hard edges. Something Akiko has watched happen under her careful attention over the course of multiple years spent with him -- but Akiko only really gets to see him at banquets and other major events.

She wonders what it’s like, to get to see him more often than that. To be able to live with him.

-

Akiko doesn’t go home. There’s a brief discussion about where she’ll stay before she ends it by saying she’ll stay with Kyo, but Kyo barely has a futon and Tohru has a bed big enough for three, and so Akiko says:

“Why don’t we all sleep there?” And Tohru turns so red she starts stammering and Kyou turns so red he matches his hair and Akiko feels like she has somehow managed to say the worst possible thing.

“That’s, that’s!” Tohru manages. “Kyou-kun might transform!”

“Not if I’m between you,” Akiko says, unphased and moderately confused. It’s strange to her, who has been sleeping with the juunishi since she was born, who has never needed to worry when Akito is always there to take care of any arguments for her.

“Akiko,” Kyou says, “this isn’t like it is with Akito-san.” 

“Why?” Akiko asks, a little bewildered. “I’ve slept with you before.”

Tohru lets out a noise like a squirrel being stepped on. “Not like that!” Kyou yells, so loudly Akiko is fairly certain the house shakes on its foundation.

“You don’t remember?” Akiko asks, carefully, because there’s a thawed part of her heart that threatens to freeze back over if she isn’t careful.

“We fell asleep on the balcony,” Kyou says, mostly to Tohru, “when we were kids, watching the snow. Not whatever you’re thinking!”

“I-- I wasn’t thinking anything,” Tohru says, despite the blush that speaks heavily to the contrary. 

Akiko understands, a little belatedly, that sex is the problem with the situation, but she doesn’t care about that because she hasn’t bothered to have sex. Akito has, and she knows that, and it’s part of the reason they had to finally get separate rooms, because she wasn’t going to deal with being kept up at night by Akito and Shigure when she had homework to do. 

Akiko frowns. She’s bad at communicating and she knows it, so finally she just reaches out, grabs Kyou’s hand and threads her fingers through it.

“You always,” she says, “spend the night with me on New Year’s.” 

And Kyou -- softens, like a camera going out of focus. He grips her hand, and looks at Tohru, and Tohru shakes her head rapidly.

“I don’t mind if you two wanted to, use my bed, if that’s the kind of thing that you--” 

“That’s not what we’re talking about--”

“The balcony,” Akiko interrupts, and she wonders how Kyou managed to find the one person in the entire country of Japan who manages to be as airheaded as Kureno and about as cute about it. “Do you have blankets?” 

“You’re seriously going to get sick,” Kyou says, with a sigh.

“Then take care of me,” Akiko says.

-

They watch the sunrise together, the three of them. Kyou takes them all the way onto the roof, once Akiko has been dressed to his standards, and Akiko sits between the two of them. She leans against Kyou, automatically, and Tohru shivers, so Akiko holds her hand out.

Tohru looks at it, and then smiles again, bright enough that Akiko isn’t even sure she needs to see the sunrise. 

“Here,” Akiko says, “if you lay against me, he won’t transform.”

“This is stupid,” Kyou says, but he doesn’t try to get away as Akiko and Tohru both wiggle into warmer positions, Akiko’s back against Kyou’s chest and Tohru leaning against Akiko’s shoulder with her legs knocking against Kyou’s.

“You were the one worried about everyone being warm,” Akiko says, and Tohru giggles. 

“You should be warm _in bed_ ,” Kyou grumbles, but he lets his arm fall around them both, wrapping around Akiko to rest lightly on Tohru’s shoulder. 

“Are you making a wish, Akiko-san?” Tohru asks, as the sunrise starts to make itself known.

Akiko looks at Kyou, then at Tohru. 

“Yes,” Akiko says, even though her first wish was already granted. She has another now, she thinks. “Do you?”

“Of course!” Tohru says, chipper and bright. She’s so animated about it she jostles their small pile of people, and then she shivers when it lets cold air in against previously hidden skin. 

“I’m wishing you both stop acting so stupid,” Kyou mumbles, annoyed, and Akiko smiles. 

Akiko waits until the sunrise, and wishes, for the first time, to continue to know someone completely outside of the curse.

-

Akiko does not go home, which is fine, until Akito comes home with Shigure and Yuki two days later.

“Shigure-san,” Tohru says, and then looks at Akito. Her eyes widen, and she looks back and forth between Akito and Akiko for a moment, her mouth falling open in surprise.

“You didn’t tell her?” Yuki admonishes, looking at Kyou, who bristles immediately, but Akiko’s head is in his lap so even as his muscles tense he doesn’t jump up like he must want to.

“I was getting there!” Kyou says.

“We’re twins,” Akiko mumbles, raising a hand. 

“I’m Akito,” Akito offers, and everyone present is treated to the visual of Tohru slowly putting the pieces together in her mind. She’s been allowed to keep her knowledge of the curse, but Akiko doubts that anyone bothered to mention that the head of the household was god, or a twin, or anything like that.

It occurs to Akiko, belatedly -- 

“Who did you think I was?” Akiko asks, slowly sitting up. Kyou reaches out, automatically, pats her hair back down into place.

“Um,” Tohru says, slightly embarrassed. “I’d heard that there were two more girls in the juunishi, so I thought--”

“No,” Akiko says, “which _animal_ did you think I was?”

Tohru flushes. “I thought maybe -- the sheep, because you’re so calm? Oh, or -- or the rooster, because you seem so smart!” 

Akito starts laughing so hard he has to hold onto Shigure to stand up.

“Be nice,” Yuki says, sighing, dropping down to sit next to Akiko.

“But if there’s two of you--” 

“God,” Akito and Akiko say, at the same time.

“Oh!” Tohru says. “I’m--”

“Don’t do anything weird,” Kyou says. 

“I’m!!”

“Tohru-kun,” Shigure says, gently, “why don’t you go make tea?” 

“Yes!!” Tohru says, and turns around to do exactly that.

-

“I don’t want to go home,” Akiko says, later, when it’s just her and Akito and Shigure in Shigure’s room. She sits next to his bookcase, tracing her fingers across the books, and Akito tilts his head at her.

“You want to stay here?”

“Yes,” Akiko says. She looks at Shigure, then back to Akito. “Can I?”

Akito doesn’t reply right away, and Shigure sets his pen down, shifting until he can see them both. Akito holds holds his arms out, and Akiko crawls into them, letting the two of them merge until their breath and heartbeat sounds like the one person it was meant to be.

“I’m sorry,” Akito murmurs, softly, “that you were lonely.” 

“It’s so warm here,” Akiko replies. 

Shigure can’t follow the minutiae of the conversation, but he can follow the gist of it. He drops a hand down to Akito’s shoulder.

“I was always planning to move back once they graduated,” Shigure says, like a promise, like a reassurance. 

Akito reaches up to brush Akiko’s hair out of her eyes. His own hairstyle, mirrored back at him, making the two of them look as identical as possible. The two of them clinging to that “bond” as hard as possible.

“Stay,” Akito says, finally, “as long as you want.” 

“There aren’t actually more bedrooms,” Shigure says, gently.

“I’ll stay with Kyou,” Akiko mumbles.

-

Akiko doesn’t stay with Kyou. Not all the time, at least. Most of her things go into Kyou’s room, but only because he has the fewest belongings and the most room; she sleeps with him on his futon some nights, and then sometimes she finds herself drawn into Tohru’s room to listen to her talk until she falls asleep on her bed. Occasionally, she drifts into Yuki’s room when she hears him coughing, rubs his back like she did when they were younger and falls asleep sitting upright against the wall.

It’s domestic, and it’s warm, and it’s everything Akiko has never had before in her life.

She wakes up in the morning and Tohru has breakfast ready. They all eat together, and then three of them are off to school and Akiko drifts in to use Shigure’s computer and bother him while he works. 

“Shigure,” she says, eventually. “When Akito and I were born, you loved us both, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Shigure says, easily. 

“But it’s different now,” Akiko says. “You love him differently.”

“Yes,” Shigure agrees. He looks at Akiko, carefully. “Does it bother you?”

“No,” Akiko says. “I think he loves you more, so it’s fine if you love him more. I just want to know how it happened.”

“How what happened?”

“How,” Akiko says, “you fall in love with someone instead of someone else.”

Shigure looks at Akiko for a long moment, reaching out to cup her cheek. Akiko leans against it, leans against the entirety of him. “Your heart chooses,” Shigure says, “and it’s up to the rest of you to follow.”

“But once,” Akiko says, softly, into the fabric of his kimono, “you loved us the same, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Shigure says. “I did.” 

It’s enough for Akiko. She understands, in that moment: she can love more than one person, if her heart decides it and she allows herself to follow. She could follow a different path, the same way that she and Akito have diverged -- or she could simply see things through to their natural conclusion.

“I think,” Akiko says, “I want to go to university after all.”

-

“Honestly,” Hatori says, “I’m surprised. I thought she was going to end up with Yuki.”

“He’s dating someone at school,” Shigure says, and Akito snorts. “Pot…? The true pot? Something like that. They met at student council. According to Haa-kun, it was _instant chemistry_.”

“The true pot?” Akito echoes, sounding skeptical. “If oneesan allows it, then it’s fine.”

“I can’t keep up with which of you decides what,” Hatori says, sounding a little tired. It doesn’t quite match the picture, because he’s lounging at the edge of the engawa with his shirt unbuttoned and a cigarette in his hand, but Akito likes the picture of it all. Hatori is always attractive when he’s partially undressed, and he knows Shigure is in agreement, given that Shigure is quick to steal Hatori’s ties at a moment’s notice.

“It’s fine,” Akito says. “We know.”

It’s true: there’s unspoken agreement between Akito and Akiko, and they don’t see the need to change that. Not when everything else is changing. Everyone is moving forward at a rapid pace, and Akito can feel his grip on things loosening, even as he takes over all the duties of head of the household with Shigure and Hatori helping. 

“What surprised me,” Akito says, with a little more jealousy than he means, “was that _Kureno_ met someone.”

“You know, the girl he’s dating is Tohru-kun’s best friend,” Shigure says.

“I shouldn’t have let her move in,” Akito says, with a sigh, and Shigure laughs. 

“It was the beginning of the end, wasn’t it?” Shigure says. 

“No,” Akito says, and his voice is faraway and his gaze falls out into the garden. “No. I think that started years ago.”

When Kureno’s curse broke and the twins started to veer away from each other, to make their own plans, to create their own realities. 

Akito wonders if they should have tried to stop it, instead, but this -- sitting across Shigure’s lap, watching Hatori smoke, content with the knowledge that he’s loved -- this is enough. For him, and for Akiko. He can feel it, the contentment radiating out from both of them, no matter how far away they are. 

It’s enough.

-

They all go to the summer house, and it’s so many people they have to split into multiple groups, which becomes something of a fiasco when Arisa automatically goes to stay with Kureno at the annex and Akiko looks between Tohru and Kyou and Yuki like she’s lost and then Shigure says something about using protection and the entire thing dissolves into chaos, which is about par for the course with the Sohma family, these days.

“I’m staying with Rin,” Akiko blurts, finally, and Rin looks up, surprised, before she accepts this. Rin has always been quieter than many of the others, so Akiko has always drifted to orbit her more often -- especially once she realized what Rin was going through, both of them wearing their bruises on the inside, locked away from view. 

“I’ll stay with you two,” Kagura says, and Rin looks at her and then nods, and so it’s decided, on that part. Tohru stays with her two best friends -- and Kisa -- and the adults all stay at the annex, with the rest of the boys left to fight over the remaining rooms. Kakeru and Yuki get split up, and so Yuki winds up with Kyou and Momiji, and Kakeru winds up with Haru and Hiro, so that, in Kyou’s words, “none of us are getting any damn sleep”.

And then it’s vacation. 

Akito sits down next to Akiko on the stairs to the beach, and Akiko observes him idly. “You’re going to melt,” she says, because black is a great color but it’s hardly beach material.

“Hatori tried to wear a suit,” Akito says, and Akiko scrunches her nose up the same way she did when she was a child and didn’t like something. 

“He’d die,” Akiko says, with complete confidence. Akiko is just in a sun dress -- Akito is fairly certain Shigure bought it for her -- and has completely eschewed all attempts to get her into a bathing suit. Her hair is getting longer, now; her bangs still frame her face the same way as Akito’s, but the back is longer, and it’s lifted by the breeze here and there.

“Neesan,” Akito says, and Akiko turns her attention to him. It’s rare for them to need to address each other when they usually know so automatically when their attention is needed, and Ren had always hated being reminded that Akiko was born first, so the term of address is rare. Akiko likes it, though. 

“Hm?”

“I don’t think it’ll last much longer,” Akito says. Akiko looks at him for a long moment, then looks back to the beach. Everyone looks so happy. Even Rin seems to be more relaxed, looking like a model in her bikini and relaxing next to Hatsuharu. Yuki and Kakeru appear to be involved in some sort of splashing contet that keeps getting derailed by Momiji’s help, and Hiro is helping Kisa bury Shigure in sand while threatening to put the entire bucket on his head. Kyou is in the water, pulling Tohru along, and Akiko watches them for a long moment.

“She’s,” Akiko says, “in love with him.” Akiko looks down at her hands. “If -- _when_ \-- it breaks, then…”

“Don’t you love her too?” Akito asks, and Akiko looks at him. He’s never seen that look of surprise before, not directed at him, and he leans over, bumps his shoulder against hers. “You didn’t notice?”

“I did,” Akiko says. 

“That’s why you’re staying in that house,” Akito says. 

“Yes,” Akiko agrees. “I wanted to see… if it was the same, for them.”

“Is it?”

“I can’t tell,” Akiko says. “She isn’t -- I can’t feel anything she feels. I don’t know what’s there.”

“I don’t know how normal people fall in love,” Akito says, because it sounds absolutely _arduous_ to have to build a relationship without a pre-existing bond. But Akiko’s certainly doing it, whether by accident or by design. “But I think you might actually have to _talk_ to her.”

“I hate that,” Akiko says, automatically, and Akito laughs. He reaches out, takes Akiko’s hand in his. There’s sand on her palms, and it’s gritty where their skin touches, but he doesn’t care.

“When it breaks,” Akito says, “please be kind to me, who will have to deal with Shigure all the time.”

Akiko smiles at that, stifles a laugh behind her hand, and then stands up, dragging Akito with her.

“I feel worse for Hatori,” she says, and for a moment, they’re the same: for a moment, they’re the reflections of each other, filling in each other’s flaws and gaps until they make one person. Then the illusion falls away, but they’re still there: maybe not whole, maybe not complete, but two people. They may have started with the same soul, but they’ve each built it in different directions, been molded by different people and in different ways. 

Akiko doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to. She just pulls Akito forward, and he goes, until they’re knee-deep in the ocean and she can fling her whole body weight at him until they fall under the surf. The saltwater stings their eyes and stays on their lips, and Akito lets go of her hand when Kyou comes over to check on them.

She doesn’t notice.

-

Akiko wakes Tohru up. Saki looks at her for a long moment, but allows the intrusion, and Akiko pulls a sleepy Tohru outside onto the beach to look at the stars.

“It’s beautiful,” Tohru says. Akiko holds both of Tohru’s hands in hers, and Tohru looks at the sky, the starlight on her skin making her look more celestial than Akito ever has.

“You’re,” Akiko says, haltingly, because compliments don’t come any easier to her than words do, “beautiful.”

Tohru blinks, and she moves like she wants to jerk back from Akiko, from the situation, from the compliment, but Akiko doesn’t let go.

“I’m-- I’m not--”

Akiko holds onto Tohru’s hands, leans forward, and kisses her. Tohru freezes for a long moment, but Akiko doesn’t step away, and after a moment Tohru’s hands tighten on Akiko’s, too, and stay that way even when Akiko finally steps back.

“I love him too,” Akiko says, quietly, and Tohru looks at Akiko with something like tears in her eyes. “I’ll hold you until he can.”

“Oh,” Tohru says, and then, “ _oh_ ,” and then Akiko kisses her again, and Tohru kisses back, and neither of them notice the shooting star.

-

At the banquet, Akiko shows up late with Tohru and Kyou, and Yuki brings Kakeru, and Ayame brings Mine, and then everyone else starts to pile in with their loved ones until it’s more lively than it ever has been before. Saki is flirting with Kazuma, and Akiko isn’t sure why either of them are there but she and Tohru set to distract Kyou before he can complain too much about his life ending. Arisa keeps laughing too loud at something Kureno is saying, and Momiji has transformed _at least_ twice already from “accidentally” running into people, but even Hatori gives up on chiding him once Akito settles into Hatori’s lap with an entire bottle of sake that Shigure claims definitely didn’t come from him.

Ritsu dresses Kagura up in furisode, and then the two of them set their sights on Kisa, and Akiko swiftly ducks behind Kyou before anyone can get any ideas about her, and then, in the midst of everything: it happens. 

At half past eleven on New Year’s Eve, the curse breaks. 

It’s a ripple through the room, so steady that even those unaffected by the curse can feel it: the bonds snap, one after the other, and Akiko hits the ground while Akito lets out a gasp like a death rattle and half the room tear up in an involuntary reaction to the feeling of being completely, utterly, and wholly alone.

“What the--” Arisa starts, softly, and Kureno takes her hand and steps backwards out of the room.

“They’ll need a moment,” Kureno says, softly, because he remembers what it was like, and the memory makes him lean forward, kiss Arisa until he feels human and real and not like a construct with human skin. 

“Akito,” Hatori murmurs, and Akito shakes his head, because he can’t look up with tears in his eyes. Shigure steps over, and Akito stretches across both of them, holds on and lets his shoulders shake with the relief that it’s gone and the grief that it’s missing. He doesn’t feel like anything is missing: he feels like there was something there preventing him from filling a space, and it’s gone now and he can fill that space the way he was meant to, like his soul has expanded to fill his entire being instead of being a shade of a memory. 

Saki exhales, slowly, and sits down, and Kazuma goes with her, because he understands, watching them all clutch each other in quiet desperation and joy.

“Akiko-san,” Tohru says, and reaches down, but Akiko is moving too quickly: she’s reaching for Kyou’s wrist, and her fingertips hit the bracelet and she _pulls_ so hard that the beads give way and scatter across the floor. Kyou falls next to her and drags Tohru down, and then he’s hugging her, hugging Akiko, his arms as tight around them both as he can manage, and Tohru is making those little noises she does when she’s trying not to cry and Akiko digs her fingers into both of their shirts because they’re still here and they’re still real despite everything else. 

“I love you,” Akiko says, to both of them, certain of it now that there’s nothing else clouding her mind, nothing else to drag her attention away. “I love you.”

Tohru laughs, even as she’s crying, the tears down her cheeks even as Kyou breathes hard against them both, stares at his naked wrist. 

“I’m so happy,” Tohru says, and Kyou closes his eyes.

-

Everyone stays up for the sunrise. They all go out and onto the best roof on the estate, and Kyou bundles Akiko up and Shigure wraps Akito in his haori and everyone sits down in the winter chill and looks to the sky as it slowly turns to a rosy glow.

“I don’t have anything to wish for,” Akiko says. She has one hand wrapped around both Kyou and Tohru’s, and the other hand clutching at Akito’s like a lifeline.

“Good health,” Hatori suggests dryly, from the other side of Akito, and he gets several laughs at that.

“I’m sure there’s something we want,” Kagura says. 

“To stay like this forever?” Akito suggests.

“No,” Akiko says, and raises their joined hands into the pink sky as the sun dips up above the horizon. “To be allowed to choose.” 

“Yeah,” Kyou says, his voice thick.

“Huh,” Kakeru says, in a mock whisper. “I was just going to wish to be a star soccer player.” 

“Please shut up,” Yuki says, but there’s a laugh in his voice that betrays him.

“Then I will make a wish on the behalf of all of us,” Ayame says, and stands up on the roof, which makes Hatori look pointedly forward before he tries to intervene and make things worse. “I wish that we may all be as _happy_ as we are in this moment, and make the choices that reflect that happiness, for as long as we live!”

“You’re not supposed to tell everyone your wish,” Yuki says, idly, and Ayame pauses.

“Well, you’re all welcome to make your own wishes that secretly reflect the one that I have graciously given you,” Ayame says, with a wave of his hand, and Yuki rolls his eyes. 

Akiko looks at Akito, and he looks back. There’s still something between them, whether magic or not, and they can both feel the certainty: this was the last banquet, the final stand for the spirits that have left them.

It’s the beginning of something else, too, though.

They both inhale, and wish.

**Author's Note:**

> the funniest part is this was actually supposed to be akito/shigure/akiko but then akiko went off and did her own thing and then there was like plot and artistic delineation of the banquet format and i just. 
> 
> anyway, you can be confused at me on twitter @warsfeils, but honestly, i don't know, either. i just write words.
> 
> i swear to you i will one day write a fic that is not about akito.


End file.
